What is the connection between hemochromatosis and liver cancer?

St. Louis (KSDK) - Liver cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide.

On this week's 8 Ways to Prevent Cancer segment, a viewer wants to know if having a disease that causes too much iron in her blood also raises her risk of liver cancer.

The blood disorder is called hemochromatosis. It's a hereditary disease that causes the body to absorb too much iron. The heart and pancreas can be damaged as a result.

But the liver, which is about the size of a football and the largest organ in the body, can be severely affected.

"Undiagnosed and untreated can lead to damage in the liver and cirrhosis," says Dr. Graham Colditz, Associate Director of Prevention and Control at the Siteman Cancer Center, and the Niess-Gain professor at Washington University School of Medicine.